Young B. Kim

Dr. Young Bae Kim, 93, of Los Angeles, California passed away peacefully in his sleep the evening of July 7, 2016. He is survived by his wife, Janis Kim, his daughter, Ellie Perry, his two sons, Eden and Evan Kim, and two granddaughters. He joins his late parents, and son Eric Kim in eternal rest. Born on October 23, 1922 in Seoul, South Korea, Dr. Kim attended a local high school and then Seoul Technical College, eventually becoming a high school math teacher, then principal. Post-World War II, a scholarship program opened up to send promising youth to earn college degrees in the United States. During the application process for this opportunity, he earned the third highest math scores in the country, as well as his place at the University of Washington in Seattle, arriving by ship in 1948.

After completing his undergraduate work in physics, he went on to pursue a PhD at Princeton University in 1950, graduating in 1954 after rubbing elbows with big name physicists like Einstein and Oppenheimer. He completed his postdoc at Indiana University, and in 1955, returned to the University of Washington as a faculty member. In 1960, he left to begin a career at Bell Labs experimenting with the development of high field superconductors. While playing a game of Go with 1976 Nobel Laureate in Physics Phil Anderson, their discussions about flow in superconductors led to the Kim-Anderson theory, revolutionizing the technology for years to come. He took a brief hiatus from Bell Labs in 1966-1967 to serve as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo under a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.

Following this visit, and his return to the States, he was invited to the University of Southern California to form a research center on low temperature and solid state physics. USC would then continue to serve as his research “home” until his retirement in 1990, with a break in 1973-74 to serve as a visiting professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science, and in 1980-82 as the Director of the US Office of Naval Research in Tokyo, Japan.

Per his final wishes, his ashes will be scattered in the Pacific Ocean on what would’ve been his 94^th birthday so he can “travel the world.” If desired, memorial donations may be made to the family for redistribution to a variety of charitable causes at http://youngbkimmemorialfund.mydagsite.com/ .